By Jung Sung-ki
Staff Reporter

Poverty-stricken North Korea purchased foreign weapons systems worth $65 million over the past five years despite its lingering food crisis, a lawmaker of the governing Grand National Party (GNP) said Monday.

Quoting documents submitted by intelligence authorities for a parliamentary audit of government agencies, Rep. Kwon Young-se of the conservative GNP said the North spent an annual $13 million on weapons from China, Russia, Slovakia and Germany over the past five years.

Kwon, a member of the National Assembly's Foreign Affairs and Trade, Unification Committee, raised suspicion that South Korea's aid programs during the liberal Roh Moo-hyun administration could be linked to the North's weapons purchase.

``While opinions in the South were divided over aid programs for the North, Pyongyang seems to have boosted its military strength through weapons acquisition programs and managed to sustain the regime,'' Kwon said. ``The South Korean government is required to come up with systematic measures to counter this kind of situation.''

The legislator said North Korea was believed to have received logistics support, such as used military vehicles and uniforms, from China, its long-time communist ally.

During the period, North Korea's army added ground-to-ground missiles, including Scud and Rodong short- and medium-range missiles, and artillery, while its navy increased the inventory of its small-sized submarines and patrol vessels, Kwon noted.

Transparency in the distribution of aid in the North has been a question for many in the South over the past decade, with critics claming most of the aid was being used to feed the North's military and the regime's elite instead of starving civilians.

Rep. Moon Hee-sang of the main opposition Democratic Party, who belongs to the Assembly's National Defense Committee, said the South Korean military power exceeds the North's in terms of the quality of weapons systems and related precision-striking capabilities and fire-power.

Moon said, citing documents submitted by the Joint Chiefs of Staff, the South's up-to-date K-series tanks, combat fighting vehicles and other artilleries have better capabilities than the North's T-34, T-54/55 tanks and others in terms of night firing and river-crossing operational capabilities.

The North doesn't have destroyers, while the South operates a number of large-sized vessels, including the 14,000-ton Dokdo landing ship, 4,500-ton destroyers and a 7,600-ton Aegis destroyer, he said.

South Korea's high-tech fighters have superior night-mission and precision-strike capabilities than the North's aging planes, he added.

gallantjung@koreatimes.co.kr